


do we need this?

by sentichefuoripiove



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, I'm still bitter but i'm willing to do the work myself lol, how did they start hooking up again krista make it make sense, pre 16x13 missing scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25261336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentichefuoripiove/pseuds/sentichefuoripiove
Summary: He used topretendto be annoyed when they tried to coax him into cooking dinner, because Meredith would come up to him, lip jutting out and pouty, trying to convince him with a kiss, and that was the best part about his day.Andrew goes to see Meredith for help about Suzanne's case. Something else happens.how do they end up in bed together in 16x13.
Relationships: Andrew DeLuca/Meredith Grey
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	do we need this?

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i started writing this before 16x13 even aired. i wanted to be a reunion scene, but then the episode happened and i reworked it a little to make sense with canon. but then i never finished and i just picked it back up, so.... not everything about it might make sense with canon, it might be all over the place facts-wise. i am sorry. i hope you can still enjoy it :)

It is only when he rings the doorbell to her house that it finally, truly, dawns on him how much of a bad idea this is.

They haven’t talked in weeks, except for sporadic work-related conversations at the hospital, and even those have always been carried out in the most professional manner, usually with other people as a buffer between them. Other than that, she has been very carefully avoiding him and going out of her way not to get stuck somewhere alone with him.

He has been so mad at her because of it. In the beginning he tried not to read too much into her behaviour, but every time their eyes meet and she has a panicked look on her face, and an excuse for leaving ready on her tongue, he gets a little more pissed off. He asked her to think about their relationship, to take him seriously, and instead she’s been ignoring him and running away, and it feels like all of this has really just been one big joke to her.

And then, lately, she started getting closer again, flirting with him in English and Italian like it’s not a big deal, like she doesn’t know what that does to him (and she does, he knows she does), and he played along with it mostly because it was nice to have her in his life like that again. She also offered to help him on the case and he was so grateful to her that he didn’t really stop to examine how that made him feel. He got home at night and realized it was worse to spend the day with her like this than not see her at all. 

So yes, he is really mad at her lately.

That’s why he has no idea what he’s doing here.

“Andrew?” She is at the door before he can turn around and leave, surprise etched all over her face. She’s wearing her usual ratty Dartmouth t-shirt, and her hair is tied in a loose, messy knot at the nape of her neck. She looks so different from how he’s used to seeing her at work lately, and his heart gives a painful tug when he realizes how little time it took him to forget that she can look like this too, and now he _really_ wants to bolt. But Meredith is studying him curiously and well, it’s not like he can turn back now.

“Huh- hi,” he manages, and nothing else. She is still looking at him somewhat confused, and he averts his eyes under the weight of her gaze, bowing his head to stare at his feet, shuffling uncomfortably on the doormat.

“Come inside, it’s freezing,” he hears her say, and he snaps his head back up in surprise: he was sure she was going to tell him to go, or mumble her way through some sort of awkward conversation before sending him on his way with a lame excuse. Or maybe simply just shut the door in his face.

That would be a normal _Meredith_ thing to do.

He walks through the door tentatively, careful not to make too much noise, or to take up too much space. It’s strange, to come back to this place and find it feels so foreign, when less than two months ago it was as familiar to him as his own apartment.

Two months ago this place almost felt like home. He used to come back here at the end of a shift, sometimes not even with Meredith but with one of the sisters, who would give him a lift so that he could already be here when Meredith came home. He used to _pretend_ to be annoyed when they tried to coax him into cooking dinner, because Meredith would come up to him, lip jutting out and pouty, trying to convince him with a kiss, and that was the best part about his day. Now he’s standing in the middle of the living room, too self conscious to drop his bag anywhere when just a couple weeks ago they’d made some space in the hallway closet for him to put away his jacket and helmet when he came over. His brain is somehow focusing on the couch pillow he doesn’t remember, wondering who bought it, where it comes from. It wasn’t there the last time he was here.

“Andrew,” Meredith’s voice startles him back to reality, and he finds her in the kitchen, moving around the island to retrieve a bag of chips from a cupboard, two beers from the fridge. She hands one to him with a tight smile, unreadable expression on her face, before settling on one of the stools. He accepts it with a nod but doesn’t sit, and there’s a long silence that stretches into the room as they just sip on their beers, not really acknowledging the other’s presence.

Andrew knows her. He knows that if she didn’t want him to be here he wouldn’t be. She would have sent him on his way with nothing more than a second thought. The thing is, he also knows that she will never turn anyone away from her house, no matter how screwed up the person is or how mad she is at them. He knows all that, it’s one of the things he’s discovered about her that he’s loved best, but it stings that she might not be doing this just because it’s _him_. He wishes he could be sure it meant something more to her than just her regular generosity.

“Are you okay?” she asks after a minute, stare fixed onto him, unwavering, and he suddenly remembers why he is here. 

He was so thrown by the fact that he is in this kitchen, with her, that he had forgotten what the catalyst for his actions had actually been. The weight of the day he just had finally crashes down onto him all at once. All it takes is for her to ask him about it. His shoulders slump and his whole body sags as he lets out the breath he has probably been holding since he got out of the OR after surgery, and he has to close his eyes for a second against the memories. When he opens them again, Meredith’s still watching him and it doesn’t look like she’s going to speak up at all. She’s just sitting there, waiting for him to tell her.

“Suzanne got worse again,” he finally offers in a shaky breath. “We took her to surgery but I think we did more harm than good.” At this point in his career, saying things like this out loud has become both easier and harder to say, part of his routine and still always devastating at the same time.

It probably still is for her too, because there’s a flash of pained surprise and grief behind her eyes, but it lasts only a second. In their job, you’ve got to get over the bad news quickly. “Those sort of hepatic complications are hard to catch unless you go in and look, and even then sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He snaps his head back to look at her, stunned. _How did she know about that?_

“How do you know about that?”

“I ran into Bailey in the parking lot. She told me,” she shrugs, like it’s nothing, like it’s normal for her to keep tabs on his patients and on _him_ through back channels instead of simply asking him. He feels a surge of annoyance bubbling up in his chest, and he has to stop himself from snapping at her.

_She did not go through back channels on purpose. She was not avoiding you._ She has been helping on the case, actually making an effort to be civil with him, and she’s also welcomed him into her home after he showed up unannounced in the middle of the night after all. She does not deserve the cutting remark that’s sitting on the tip of his tongue. He exhales deeply, calming himself down, and speaks up: “I’m not sure what to do next, to be honest. I feel stuck.”

“Right.” Meredith sets down her beer, suddenly resolute. “I’ll take another look. You have her charts?”

“Su- sure,” he stutters, taken aback by her change in demeanor. He came here tonight fully expecting to get turned down, but with every single action she keeps proving him wrong, and it’s sending his mind spinning.

They move to the couch, files scattered in front of them, tablets on their laps. It was already late when he arrived at her house, and by the time he’s finished detailing to her all the facts of the case once again, it’s close to three in the morning, and he still can’t seem to shut his brain off. Part of him wants to just give in to the familiar comfort of her couch, rest his head back and just… close his eyes next to her for a second, like they’ve done a million times before; but the stronger part of his mind keeps screaming at him that he needs to solve this, needs to fix Suzanne before he can allow himself to relax.

“Hey, this is actually pretty smart, Andrew,” she says, pointing at a line on a chart showing one of the labs he did last week. “I would have never thought about testing for that. That’s good.”

“Really?” He grins at her, trying not to read too much in the way she returns the smile. “You’re the one who actually taught me to do that.”

“What?! When?”

“It was either my intern year or the year after, I can’t remember… I was on your service and you had a patient with ulcerative colitis. I thought the same principles might apply here.”

“That’s- that’s actually very impressive,” she whispers, before breaking into a smile, and now she’s beaming at him, and he’s sure he’s doing the same right back at her. Just like that, he’s momentarily forgotten why he was ever mad at her in the first place. This, being here with her on her couch late at night, talking, feels easy, and _right_ , and he’s spent so many weeks feeling anything but right, that it’s making him a little light headed, and a lot more bold than is probably wise.

He knows he should tread lightly. He doesn’t really care.

He maneuvers himself on the couch until he’s sitting sideways, facing her. She drops her head on the back of the couch with a sigh, relaxing, and turns her head slightly until she’s looking at him. She smiles, content, and closes her eyes. Andrew takes his time looking at her without having to police himself, and not for the first time tonight he’s painfully aware of how strange the entire situation is.

Her shirt has ridden up a little, bunched up against the fabric of the couch, and there’s a sliver of skin poking out at her waist. The knot in her hair came loose long ago, while she was focused on reading the charts he was showing her, and it’s framing her face in a mess of blonde tendrils that make her look younger (not that she needs it, as much as she likes to complain), and truly, _ridiculously_ beautiful.

She said she’s missed him, and he believes her, but he’s not sure he can even put into words how much _he_ has missed _her_. He’s focused all his energy on being mad at her, for the fact that she basically ignored him for months and kept him at arm’s length about everything of importance in her life. Being mad at her was easier than admitting the truth, that he’s been kicking himself for basically breaking up with her when he could have just talked to her like an adult, figured things out like a committed couple. He’d been impulsive, and now he’s living the consequences of that and it just _sucks_. 

“What are you thinking about?” she murmurs, her eyes still closed.

“If I made the right decision coming here tonight.”

“What?” Her eyes fly open, and she jolts upright, facing him on the couch. She doesn’t really look offended, but there’s hurt flashing across her eyes. “Why would you say that?”

“Meredith… come on,” he reasons, holding her gaze. “What are we doing here?”

“I thought we were working on a case,” she smirks, and he’d get mad if this side of her wasn’t exactly what he loves about her.

“Is it the only thing you want to do?” He’s being more forward now, he knows, but his bluntness is finally getting them somewhere: Meredith straightens a little, her mouth drawn into a tight line.

“Andrew…”

“Because I don’t. You know that… but at some point, I need to know what _you_ are thinking.”

“I- Andrew, I don’t-” Meredith drops her head, staring at the hands in her lap. Her hair finally escapes the last constraints of her hair tie, falling in front of her face and shielding her from him. That’s one thing he can’t stand right now, the idea of not being able to see her face. He raises his hand slowly, and strokes one strand of hair, pushing it back behind her ear. She looks up timidly, and he knows her well enough by now to recognise the slight panic in her expression. It’s familiar, almost endearing, and he smiles despite himself, because he wanted to be strong and assertive to have this conversation, but he can’t do that when she looks at him like this.

“Can we please talk about this again?” He inches closer to her, his voice barely a whisper. She hears him fine though, because her eyes widen and she stiffens a little, but she doesn’t move away. She’s still staring at him.

“Andrew.”

“Can we?”

She doesn’t say anything this time, and he’s out of words to try and convince her. He covers the very short distance that’s still separating them, and he covers her mouth with his before she has the chance to.

Every single cell in his body lights up when he kisses her, and for a moment he forgets why he ever thought he could go the rest of his life without doing it. She leans into it, whimpering, and his brain finally completely short circuits. He moves fast, on instinct, circling his arms around her waist to pull her up and closer to him until she’s straddling his lap. She squeals at the motion, laughing, and in the haste of passion they must rock the couch a little too hard, knocking over something, because there’s a loud crash and they’re suddenly flooded in darkness.

“Oh, shit,” he gasps into her mouth, too wrapped up in her to have the space for the words to come out properly. He feels her whole body shake with laughter, and she’s leaving sloppy kisses against his mouth again, and he relaxes for a second, relieved. 

“Don’t worry about it, just-” He doesn’t let her finish, again. He kisses her soundly, again and again, until it seems like they’ve both forgotten where they are, what they were doing before this started. Everything about Meredith is drowning his senses all at once, the way her skin feels under his fingertips leaves him lightheaded. He can feel himself grow impatient, frantic, he wants to reach all of her all at once, and he tries wrapping himself so tightly around her that she can’t move at all, can’t change her mind, can’t… leave. She can’t leave him.

“Mer... please,” he can hear himself say in the dark, the plea getting lost in her hair and the crook of her neck where his lips are resting. 

His blood freezes in his veins when she pushes him away right then, and all the decisions he made today that brought him here come back to him: getting on his bike and coming here instead of going home, accepting the beer she offered... getting close enough to brush her hair out of her eyes, expecting it wouldn’t mean anything. 

It always means _everything_.

He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to look at her while she inevitably sobers up and tells him to go. He knows she will be level-headed and practical and will tell him this is not something they should do. 

He waits for the words, but they never come. 

So he opens his eyes. 

Meredith is studying him. He can see the blue in her eyes even in the dark, he gets lost in it and for a second he forgets what is happening here. He can’t really tell what she is thinking. 

“I’m sorry,” he stutters, and it feels weird to have this detached conversation while they’re this wrapped up into one another, “I didn’t mean to-, I don’t-”

“Andrew.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my wonderful friend [cartoonheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartoonheart) for beta-ing this for me, and still being excited about me writing merluca. ily hon :)
> 
> I hope y'all liked this! i know i've been too frustrated with s16 to actually write anything, but i'm trying to get back to the fandom. leave a comment if you'd like, or come find me on [tumblr](https://sentichefuoripiove.tumblr.com)!
> 
> thanks for reading xx


End file.
